Back...

[liralen]

... and managed to be very lucky today in dropping in on an eye exam for Jet today, and finding that they could give him half off his new glasses because we'd bought his glasses from him last year, on August 15th! *laughs* So we were lucky and he got a very nice new pair of glasses for his new prescription.

We saw Ponyo and it was sweet and very Miyazaki. *laughs* I now REALLY want to see it with the Japanese voices instead of the American ones.

From David's house, we did a mad rush of visits for the last few days, and then flew home far too early in the day on Thursday. Today we're still trying to catch up on everything we need to catch up on, and not the least of those is sleep...

From David's cabin in Glacier we actually went into the national forest near there, and saw some Old Growth Trees. They were huge, massive, so tall we could barely see the bottom most branches much less the tops of them. The fallen ones were nearly as tall as we were, and some younger ones by the road looked to be 400-500 years old, and they weren't nearly the same girth as the ones that were still standing. Their bodies were homes for dozens of other plants and probably hid burrows for all kinds of animals. We walked about their feet and got dripped on gently.

The two that had fallen by the road had cracked the road and left divots nearly five feet wide on the far side of the road.

They were really amazing and we spent a good amount of time just breathing them in.

From there we headed into Bellingham so that we could go to Mallard's Ice Cream. I think that Jet's getting used to having ice cream before a meal, but after his last experience with that, he was pretty insistant that we go get "a real lunch" afterward. That was pretty good on his part. And the Bagelery just next door to the ice cream shop provided a light, easy lunch. John and I split a bagel with lox and a simple cream cheese onion bagel together, and Jet got his own buttered bagel. It was plenty of fuel for the ride home, and as we left we called crimini and her house to tell her that we were finally on our way.

We dropped Granny and Grandpa off at their house and the three of us drove to Redmond and found crimini and niherlas's house. There we got to meet up with them and their son, N, who really, really loved playing with Jet and vice versa. Jet really needed some smaller kid time, and it was just the ticket. We played a lot of games, they did some building, and the weather cleared up enough that they took us to Idylwood park and the boys could just run and run and run on the play equipment there. There were sniffles when we said that it was not just time to go, but also bed time and time to get back to Granny and Grandpa's, they'd made so many plans they couldn't fit in the time we gave them.

But they had a blast, so that was to the good.

The funny thing was that for dinner we went to the Toshi's Teriyaki in Redmond that we used to go to a LOT back when we worked and lived there. We ordered short ribs, and when the lady gave us our meals her eyes suddenly got wide.

"You recognize us?" I asked, teasingly, and she nodded. "I guess we were here often enough!" I said.

John told her that we'd moved away ten years ago to Colorado.

Her answer was, "Are you kidding me?!?"

Hee. She remembered us and it was fun to catch up a little, and even more fun having niherlas mutter about once a regular, always a regular. *grins* It was very nice to be recognized. They're doing all right, but all the businesses have been suffering some. So they were very happy to have us visit.

The next morning was our run to get a couple of bottle of teriyaki sauce from the Toshi's in Issaquah (yes, we ate there a lot, too... *laughs* but they also reuse the sports bottles they gave us and Jet likes the thicker sauce that site has) and shop at Trader Joe's. We also got gas at Costco, and picked up drinks from a Starbuck's near there as I was having severe caffeine withdrawal.

Most of the rest of the morning was taken up in John helping his folks out with computer issues, and the sun came out again in the afternoon, so we all went to Lake Washington and a little "beach" right off 405. Jet was disappointed by the beach, and by the lifeguards that required a swim in too shallow water to prove that he could swim in deep water.

"That doesn't make any sense," he said. "Swimming in water where I hit my knees while I'm trying to swim to prove that I can go deep? Why not have me swim in the deep water?"

But it was sunny and warm, and the sand, while a little dirty, was still sand, and he and John built a mound under the water. Jet was kind of taken by being able to build things under water that didn't get instantly washed away by waves, but he really had wanted an ocean beach.

He'll get that in San Diego.

At 4 we left, so that we could wash up and get to the downtown Uwajimaya before 5:30 to meet up with stark_black and her daughter. We got there in plenty of time, and she arrived early as well, so we met up at Samurai Noodle, a ramen soup place. It was not nearly as busy Wednesday night as it was that mid-day time we'd tried to go there last time, and we got a table nearly instantly and our food came much faster. It was good and hot as well, and we all dug in happily.

After the food, we hit the shops, there was a little $1.50 store on the corner, not nearly as cool as the one that I saw in the Bay Area, but still nice enough. Then we got all kinds of random stuff in the store itself. I passed on the short grain rice as the Takahashi Gold that I've been craving seemed so very, very expensive. I kind of regret that now, as the medium grade short grain rices here in the Longmont/Boulder area are actually more expensive than the top grade stuff I was finding there.

After finding various food things, we hit the bookstore, and wandered in all directions. I wasn't as much into buying manga there, as I really like RightStuf and having it shipped to our door instead of having to carry it home. But they had all kinds of small Japanese things that I just don't see anywhere else, including a tiny plastic puzzle ball on a keychain/cell phone fob that was a puzzle of Lilo and Stitch! *laughs* I had to get it. Jet wanted to get the Mickey Mouse one, but didn't have the money anymore for it. Still he was okay with not being able to get it now if he could tell Granny and Grandpa about the possibility of getting it for Christmas.

stark_black was amazingly kick-ass in her uniform and it was amazing to see her again and get to just talk. I'm very glad that she took the trouble to come out to meet me as she was in classes all week.

Jet and I put the puzzle ball together when we got back home and it was so solid when it was finished that I could hang it from my celphone and not worry about it coming apart at all all the way home. We were up at 5:30 in the morning to get to our 8:30 flight, and had no problems at all. We were just really tired by the time we got home, but we had lunch at the 2 Dog Diner, the boys even went swimming, and dinner was just pot stickers. We restocked the food, the fridge, and unloaded everything we'd brought back with us.

There are dozens of tomatoes, now, and zucchini. The corn is tall and the raccoons didn't raid them until AFTER we'd gotten back last night, now John has spread deterrants about the garden, hopefully that'll keep them away... especially since they went after Jet's ten foot tall Indian corn as well as John's sweet corn.

This morning was an eye exam adventure, and we got Jet examined but not me. He needed it for school, which starts next week, and they were running a $29 special on his eye exam. THAT was quite the deal. And then we discovered that we were exactly on time, by one day, to get his glasses replaced for half price because John had bought Jet's previous pair on a special plan. That was good.

The movie was very good. But after we had some trouble finding dinner, as Boulder on a Friday night was just so packed we couldn't find parking anywhere; and China Gourmet (our second choice) only takes cash and we had completely run out from the trip. We ended up at Sakura's, our favorite sushi place, and just relaxed into the familiar again.

Tomorrow's pretty full again.

But I'm very, very pleased that I actually wrote 1500 words today, for "Silver and Black". I think that once Jet's back in school, I'm going to be able to write again. That is a very good feeling indeed. The new machine is working out just fine, and I'm very pleased to know that it's just working day to day... whew...